sale on Wenlin through 12/31/2015

[Taibei]

Wenlin software for learning Chinese (now version 4.2.2) is on sale through the end of the month (December 2015) for just US$49. This is a great deal -- half off the normal price and only one-quarter of what it sold for a few years ago.

I love this program and use it on an almost daily basis. Strongly recommended. You can find other references to it here in the forums. 

Wenlin is available for both Mac OS and Windows. There's some sort of Linux version out there, too; but you'd have to check with the folk at Wenlin for the details of that.

It also incorporates the ABC Chinese-English / English-Chinese Dictionary -- one of the best.

Use the discount code CCMS2015 to receive the special price.

The ABC Dictionary of Chinese Proverbs (漢英諺語詞典, Hàn-Yīng Yànyǔ Cídiǎn), is available as a US$19.95 add-on.
 

[querido]

I second the above praise of Wenlin. I have also used it almost every day for about seven years and it has been my default text editor for that long.

 

There wasn't a Linux version last time I checked but about five years ago I did make it run successfully there.

[roddy]

Bought, thanks!

[ChTTay]

I've looked at the website and I'm still not sure what Wenlin is or how it helps me learn Chinese. What is Wenlin?

[roddy]

John Pasden wrote up a review 5 years ago. It's probably still pretty valid.

[Taibei]

I've looked at the website and I'm still not sure what Wenlin is or how it helps me learn Chinese. What is Wenlin? 

 

You might want to try out the free, limited edition, which should give you an idea of what Wenlin can do. 

[Michael H]

I looked at the 5-year old review and am still mystified. The review seems to assume you are already familiar with the product, and describes the changes from one version to another. If someone could briefly summarize the main features of the product for the benefit of people who don't know anything about it, that would be helpful.

[li3wei1]

If I've already got Pleco, Imron's CTA, and my favorite free online dictionaries, archchinese (for searching by component) and writtenchinese (for frequency-based lists), is there anything here worth spending money on?

[Shelley]

@Micheal H I would say in the simplest terms Wenlin is Pleco for the PC or iOs.  It is a dictionary, text reader and flashcard program and more.

 

I have had it for many years and have never really made full use of it, I am afraid the UI (user interface) is IMHO too clumsy and seems to be stuck in the 90s.

 

I do like the in depth character etymology and this is what I mainly use Wenlin for.

 

I have to say Pleco is my first choice for all the other things.

[Guest realmayo]

For all its faults (which are just related to the interface), I love Wenlin and have done for years and years. For a start, the 'show other characters that are made from this character' function is glorious! That and the etymologies helped me learn characters when I eventually got down to that. I think I might take a punt on the Chinese Proverbs add-on dictionary.

[Guest realmayo]

Michael H, you can download trial version Wénlín Miǎnfèibǎn on their site, which presumably will show you the basics of the software.

Edit: as per #6

[naijahusker]

Is there any other software out there that you can use to segment texts into seperate words (that is put spaces between words) like Wenlin does? This is the only reason I've used it and it is great for that.

[Taibei]

Is there any other software out there that you can use to segment texts into seperate words (that is put spaces between words) like Wenlin does? This is the only reason I've used it and it is great for that.

For those unfamiliar with Wenlin, that's achieved by 

Edit → Make Transformed Copy → Segment Hanzi

 

I probably use Wenlin most for another function found under the same menu: 

Edit → Make Transformed Copy → Pinyin transcription

 

To get back your question, Key Chinese will handle word segmentation, probably better than Wenlin (or at least with a lot less user input required), because Key's database has a much larger corpus of proper nouns. But it's not cheap: US$195 vs. Wenlin's US$99 (or present sale price US$49). 

 

I love both programs, which are different but have some overlap. 

[roddy]

To be honest I'm not sure I'd recommend it all that strongly nowadays - you probably already have tools, free or paid, which will do most of the same things. But I like having it on my desktop, rather than online or on my phone, as it disrupts the workflow less. 

[yifeng]

@naijahusker

Is there any other software out there that you can use to segment texts into seperate words (that is put spaces between words) like Wenlin does? This is the only reason I've used it and it is great for that.

As for Chinese word segmentation, I recommend Smart Chinese Reader 2.0, a nice Chinese reading and learning software. It achieves a higher precision of Chinese word segmentation and can recognize person names, place names in a text. Better still, parts of speech of words are labeled with different colors as "verb", "adjective", "adverb", "noun", etc. This is useful for learners to develop a clearer understanding of Chinese grammar.
 
In Smart Chinese Reader, a sentence is first split by a HMM ( Hidden Markov Model) based segmenter. Then, the result is adjusted by a set of rules. It is a hybrid system. Besides choosing a proper segmentation model, the segmentation accuracy is largely determined by parameters and rules. They must come from a lot of experiments. Please just paste a Chinese text into Smart Chinese Reader and click the "Segment" button to experience its precision.